Allegory #2 - The Art of Distraction

    When I was in 2nd grade I moved to a new city. Having lost all my old social connections I felt angry and lost. Although I had been fairly popular at my first school, I didn't make a good first impression at this new elementary and struggled to form the same prosocial connections again. I sank into a more reclusive personality.

    Everyone deals with bullies at some point, and while it was never really something that plagued me, I do recall once instance where a bully accused me of harming his younger brother in some way. I had no idea who either individual was, but being confronted by this larger opponent and not wanting to be blamed and have to reap whatever punishment that was coming for me, I decided to lie my way out. The exchange went something like this:

        "I heard you were the one that hurt by little brother!" 

                "Uh no, it was that other guy that looks like me..."

        "Oh...which guy?"

                "Uh, idk he was down there." (Points far away)

        "...how do I know you're not lying?"

                "Well, I'll help you look for him."

    Thereafter we spent the rest of lunch recess (a long 20 mins) on a wild goose chase looking for a boy who "looked like me" but in fact did not exist. At the bell I felt I had an obvious excuse to escape back to the safety of the classroom. I never had a problem with that bully again; presumably he lost interest. 

    I recall having this feeling like I needed to just distract him and divert his interest away from me in whatever way I could. Initially I was cornered, but by manufacturing some diversion and shifting blame onto someone else I could effectively escape harm.

    When I watch Trump dissemble his way through controversy after controversy, I am reminded of that little boy I used to be who would be willing to lie about anything if it meant escaping certain harm. Trump is undoubtedly facing a waiting body of lawsuits against him, his businesses, and his family once he becomes a private citizen again, and so he seems willing to lie about anything to distract people from harming him in any way. Perhaps everyone has played with these dark arts a little, but it is a practice that Trump has perfected and used to reach the highest office imaginable. 

    A percentage of Americans have not been fooled by Trump's lies, but a frightful percentage have been and still are. They are happily chasing after the Radical Left and Antifa militants as if they are the real problem, not willing to imagine that they are being duped and led on a wild goose chase. If this continues for another 4 years, I shudder to think what "Lord of the Flies" level travesties will unfold in this country. Trump represents the epitome of a runaway capitalistic system that uses apocryphal stories of self-worth,  work ethic, and liberty to distract us from the fraudulent and amoral path by which he and so many other people (now his sycophants) have travelled on their road to riches. 

       I worry that if my recess had been too much longer that bully would have realized he was being duped and decided to reverse his ardor back at me. Perhaps I would have tried to lie again, or run away, who knows what I would have been willing to do to escape his wrath. The bell was a decisive moment of relief in my mind that spelled safe passage. The 2020 election will be a similar turning point in either the recovery or downfall of the United States. Will we escape to freedom? That bell cannot ring soon enough.

     

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